CPU Guide

AMD - Hanging in there

AMD - Hanging in there

2011 may herald the age of 'fusion', what with both AMD and Intel merging graphics processors into the main die of their CPUs, but that doesn't mean traditional CPUs are going away anytime soon. Intel's upcoming Sandy Bridge architecture and AMD's Brazos and Llano processors will undoubtedly raise the bar for integrated graphics, but enthusiasts demand the performance that only discrete graphics can deliver.

On that front, AMD has limited options to offer. Brazos is a mobile platform while the K10 derived Llano is not expected till the middle of the year. One likely has to wait till Q3 2011 to see AMD's new Bulldozer architecture that replaces the current K10 platform. It only means that for the desktop, AMD will be relying on variants of its existing Phenom II/Athlon II for the next six months at least. AMD has long conceded the high-end desktop segment to Intel with none of its processors, even its 6-cores above the US$250 mark.

With its latest 6-core processor, a new flagship desktop 'Black Edition' processor that comes with unlocked multipliers, it does seem that AMD continues to give you more value for your cores. At US$265, the new AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition stays comfortably below the US$300 mark, pitting it against Intel's LGA1156 Core i5/i7 processors. The other 6-core processors have also gotten a price revision in the past few weeks and the former top AMD 6-core, the Phenom II X6 1090T for instance is now at US$235.

Along with the new 6-core, AMD also released two new entries to its lineup, a Phenom II X2 565 and an Athlon II X3 455, both of which are incremental upgrades (100MHz) over the Phenom II X2 560 and Athlon II X3 450 that debuted in September. Hence for this December update we get the following:

Processor Model

Clock Speed

L2 Cache

L3 Cache

HyperTransport Bus

Max TDP (W)

Retail Price (US$)

Availability

AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition

3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Core)

512KB x 6

6MB

2.0GHz

125W

~265

Now

AMD Phenom II X2 565

3.4GHz

512KB x 2

6MB

2.0GHz

80W

~115

Now

AMD Athlon II X3 455

3.3GHz

512KB x 3

N.A

2.0GHz

95W

~87

Now

Since we didn't manage to feature AMD's last round of processor updates in September, we also took the opportunity now to update the benchmarks and include them in this article. Hence, we'll be looking at the following AMD processors that were released then, all of which are incremental speed bumps to the existing lineup. (While the Phenom II X2 560, the Athlon II X3 450 and the Athlon II X2 265 were also released back then, we won't be covering them today.)